Calling it unnecessary, Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a bill Friday aimed at ensuring that no tax dollars are used to influence elections. Romney said he vetoed the bill (S2221) because there is already a law on the books that prohibits the use of taxes to promote or oppose state or local ballot questions....

Critics of the bill said it is unfair to allow town government officials to choose who writes the arguments.
Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation, opposed the bill, saying cities and towns will be able to manipulate the information to produce the outcome they want.

Disguised as a measure to toughen enforcement of current laws prohibiting taxpayer's money being used to advocate for or against ballot questions ...

But the measure also opened a giant loophole for local officials, allowing them to produce and send out "voters' guides" prior to property tax override votes. Of course, the very officials looking for more tax money got to make the case for it, courtesy of the taxpayers, who got to pay for it -- on both ends.

Some of the time our successes are spectacular headline-grabbing
victories: CLT's ballot campaigns
winning Proposition 2½ in 1980, repealing the Dukakis surtax in 1986,
defeating the "Grad Tax" several times over the decades, or
rolling back the 1989 "temporary" income tax hike in 2000. But
more frequently they are defensive, quiet victories just keeping what
we've got; or preventative, avoiding worse from succeeding and
taking hold.

I've been reassuring the staff for years that CLT's
greatest value has always been not what we do, but what we prevent
from being done to us. Though this success too often goes
unrecognized, without CLT, Massachusetts taxpayers would surely be worse
off -- significantly so.

Such proposals always begin by sounding innocuous,
even as if they could be a great idea. But after decades of experience
with "legislativese," you know when to be suspicious -- and
this was one of those situations. When a bill becomes suspect, the
"What? -- Who? -- Why?" test kicks in. Such was the case when
we read:

State House News Service
October 7, 2004

Bill on Gov's desk aimed at
preventing use of tax dollars on elections

With Election Day approaching, lawmakers on Thursday sent Gov. Mitt Romney a bill aimed at ensuring that no tax dollars are used to influence elections. Sen. Brian Joyce (D-Milton) said the bill reinforces existing laws by making the prohibition "quite explicit." The bill was advanced, he said, in response to complaints that municipal officials were sending fliers home with students, or using school copiers or letterhead to advocate Proposition 2½ property tax overrides, Joyce said.

"I don’t think it’s a problem that has reached epidemic proportions, but I think it’s good to just nip it in the bud," Joyce said. "There’s perhaps a temptation on the part of municipal officials or school advocates and the like to seek to influence the outcome of an election. There’s nothing wrong with advocacy and such, you just can’t use tax dollars to do so."

The bill lays out penalties – a fine of not more than $10,000 and up to a year in jail – for anyone who “knowingly aids or abets the violation” of the proposed law. The legislation also includes local option language detailing how local governing bodies handle the dissemination of information about ballot questions to voters.

State Senator Brian Joyce is a political opportunist
of the first degree. When the CLT 2½ PAC was forced to withdraw
its endorsement of him in 1998 we recognized this. As PAC director,
Chip Faulkner wrote to him: "We are embarrassed by our support of you, and sincerely regret the false impression we unwittingly gave Suffolk & Norfolk voters about your commitment to the taxpayers."

When he purports to sponsor a taxpayer-friendly bill
-- taxpayers beware!

"He won't fool us twice." And he hasn't.

When you read the above State House News Service
report Sen.
Joyce's bill looks pretty good until you get to its last sentence.
Then the warning flags go up. When you see that the House sponsors of
the bill also have low CLT ratings, you know that the Trojan Horse is at
the gate.

We sent the bill to two of our local taxpayer-group
activists, Ted Tripp of the North Andover Taxpayers Association and Norm
Paley, CLT's Plymouth County coordinator, who concurred with our
instincts. Then we asked
the governor for his veto. Since he was out-of-state, Lt. Governor
Healey did the honors and vetoed this underhanded attack on Prop 2½.

This narrow escape is an example of how decades of
experience as watchdogs of Beacon Hill pay off.

Calling it unnecessary, Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a bill Friday aimed at ensuring that no tax dollars are used to influence elections. Romney said he vetoed the bill (S2221) because there is already a law on the books that prohibits the use of taxes to promote or oppose state or local ballot questions.

Sen. Brian Joyce (D-Milton), co-chairman of the Committee on Election Laws, said the bill reinforced existing laws by making the prohibition "quite explicit."

Under the bill, people who knowingly violate the law would have been subject to a fine of not more than $10,000 and up to a year in jail. The proposed law also would have also required cities and towns that want to send voters information about binding ballot questions to provide arguments from both opponents and proponents of the question. Officials in the Secretary of State’s office said city and town clerks supported the bill.

According to Joyce, the bill was filed in response to complaints that municipal officials were sending fliers home with students, or using school copiers or letterhead to advocate Proposition 2½ property tax overrides. The bill would have required the town solicitor or town counsel to give voters "the full text of each such question, a fair and concise summary of each such question, including a one-sentence statement describing the effect of a yes or no vote, and arguments for and against each such question," according to the bill.

Critics of the bill said it is unfair to allow town government officials to choose who writes the arguments.
Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation, opposed the bill, saying cities and towns will be able to manipulate the information to produce the outcome they want.

Responding to the governor’s veto, Joyce said, "This is a fairly all-American bill. It makes no sense why he would veto it."

Disguised as a measure to toughen enforcement of current laws prohibiting taxpayer's money being used to advocate for or against ballot questions, a bill vetoed by Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey last week actually weakened current protections. There are sure to be more sneak attacks on Proposition
2½ to come. This is the first time the Romney administration has had to step in and protect the tax-limit law. It won't be the last.

At first glance, the Senate bill simply proposed modest penalties for using public resources to advocate for a ballot question. These are much needed, but ought to be even tougher than the suggested maximum $10,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

But the measure also opened a giant loophole for local officials, allowing them to produce and send out "voters' guides" prior to property tax override votes. Of course, the very officials looking for more tax money got to make the case for it, courtesy of the taxpayers, who got to pay for it -- on both ends.

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